• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

ASUS Enables Resizable BAR Support on First-Generation AMD Ryzen CPUs

AleksandarK

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
Aug 19, 2017
Messages
2,669 (0.99/day)
When AMD introduced its Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology, it was used as one of the key advertising points for its 5000 series of Ryzen processors based on Zen 3 architecture. At the time of launch, it was believed that only the latest generation of Ryzen processors can support it and only AMD GPUs can see a benefit in performance. However, later on, many of the motherboard makers have been playing with BIOS updates and have found a way to enable resizable BAR, the technology used for SAM, on non-AMD platforms. Today, thanks to the Reddit user Merich98 we have found out that ASUS has enabled resizable BAR support via BIOS update.

The user has used BIOS version 2409, released just a few days ago, on ASUS B450-PLUS motherboard. The feat is no extraordinary because it works on a B450 motherboard, it has been supported for a long time, but rather the feat is impressive because it works with the first generation AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor. This contradicts the theory that SAM only needs 5000 series AMD Ryzen processors to run. However, the gains were not that great. On average, the average frame rate number has increased by a small +0.839%. This could be attributed to some margin of error, so it seems like SAM is not giving much performance uplift in this case.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Feb 23, 2019
Messages
6,110 (2.86/day)
Location
Poland
Processor Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite
Cooling Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE
Memory 2x16 GB Crucial Ballistix 3600 CL16 Rev E @ 3600 CL14
Video Card(s) RTX3080 Ti FE
Storage SX8200 Pro 1 TB, Plextor M6Pro 256 GB, WD Blue 2TB
Display(s) LG 34GN850P-B
Case SilverStone Primera PM01 RGB
Audio Device(s) SoundBlaster G6 | Fidelio X2 | Sennheiser 6XX
Power Supply SeaSonic Focus Plus Gold 750W
Mouse Endgame Gear XM1R
Keyboard Wooting Two HE
It was only a matter of time.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Messages
3,152 (0.93/day)
Location
Argentina
System Name Ciel / Akane
Processor AMD Ryzen R5 5600X / Intel Core i3 12100F
Motherboard Asus Tuf Gaming B550 Plus / Biostar H610MHP
Cooling ID-Cooling 224-XT Basic / Stock
Memory 2x 16GB Kingston Fury 3600MHz / 2x 8GB Patriot 3200MHz
Video Card(s) Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti / Dell GTX 1660 SUPER
Storage NVMe Kingston KC3000 2TB + NVMe Toshiba KBG40ZNT256G + HDD WD 4TB / NVMe WD Blue SN550 512GB
Display(s) AOC Q27G3XMN / Samsung S22F350
Case Cougar MX410 Mesh-G / Generic
Audio Device(s) Kingston HyperX Cloud Stinger Core 7.1 Wireless PC
Power Supply Aerocool KCAS-500W / Gigabyte P450B
Mouse EVGA X15 / Logitech G203
Keyboard VSG Alnilam / Dell
Software Windows 11
I also have it on my B450M-A. But with no GPU to test it with, I can't confirm anything yet.
 
Joined
May 7, 2016
Messages
13 (0.00/day)
The article says the user tested SAM on a Gen 1 Zen processor and an RX 580. But with the limited performance uplift it would explain why they haven't taken advantage of this feature until this generation.
 
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
3,610 (0.67/day)
Location
Portugal
System Name LenovoⓇ ThinkPad™ T430
Processor IntelⓇ Core™ i5-3210M processor (2 cores, 2.50GHz, 3MB cache), Intel Turbo Boost™ 2.0 (3.10GHz), HT™
Motherboard Lenovo 2344 (Mobile Intel QM77 Express Chipset)
Cooling Single-pipe heatsink + Delta fan
Memory 2x 8GB KingstonⓇ HyperX™ Impact 2133MHz DDR3L SO-DIMM
Video Card(s) Intel HD Graphics™ 4000 (GPU clk: 1100MHz, vRAM clk: 1066MHz)
Storage SamsungⓇ 860 EVO mSATA (250GB) + 850 EVO (500GB) SATA
Display(s) 14.0" (355mm) HD (1366x768) color, anti-glare, LED backlight, 200 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, 300:1 co
Case ThinkPad Roll Cage (one-piece magnesium frame)
Audio Device(s) HD Audio, RealtekⓇ ALC3202 codec, DolbyⓇ Advanced Audio™ v2 / stereo speakers, 1W x 2
Power Supply ThinkPad 65W AC Adapter + ThinkPad Battery 70++ (9-cell)
Mouse TrackPointⓇ pointing device + UltraNav™, wide touchpad below keyboard + ThinkLight™
Keyboard 6-row, 84-key, ThinkVantage button, spill-resistant, multimedia Fn keys, LED backlight (PT Layout)
Software MicrosoftⓇ WindowsⓇ 10 x86-64 (22H2)
BAM! A matter of time!
Now MSI, do the same for both the non-AGESA-supporting 3000 series Ryzens and one that does support them :D plzkthxbye
(actually interesting ASRock didn't do it first)
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2019
Messages
203 (0.11/day)
AMDs attempts to market this as a ryzen 5000 exclusive feature are dangerous. They are slowly evolving into the money grubbing caricature people love to tout with Nvidia and Intel. I am hoping the latter can become competitive once more to ensure we as consumers are protected
 
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
151 (0.04/day)
wait ,so the beta bios with support for 5xxx CPU series hasn't removed support for older cpus?
 
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
14,170 (3.81/day)
Location
Sunshine Coast
System Name H7 Flow 2024
Processor AMD 5800X3D
Motherboard Asus X570 Tough Gaming
Cooling Custom liquid
Memory 32 GB DDR4
Video Card(s) Intel ARC A750
Storage Crucial P5 Plus 2TB.
Display(s) AOC 24" Freesync 1m.s. 75Hz
Mouse Lenovo
Keyboard Eweadn Mechanical
Software W11 Pro 64 bit
The article says the user tested SAM on a Gen 1 Zen processor and an RX 580. But with the limited performance uplift it would explain why they haven't taken advantage of this feature until this generation.
If that is the case then an old CPU with a current GPU should be tested.
 
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
985 (0.21/day)
Location
Ireland
wait ,so the beta bios with support for 5xxx CPU series hasn't removed support for older cpus?
Nope, I have flashed my B450 with latest BIOS that supports 5xxx CPU's and still using R5 2600X in it :)
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.90/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
Enabling it in the BIOS doesnt mean a lot, and Asus are pretty well known for BIOS settings that do nothing
even now i have duplicates for a bunch of BIOS settings - and they often dont even match up (i have two "AMD overclocking" sections and they dont sync settings on my B450 and x570 asus boards)


Also doesnt the GPU need to support it in the drivers for it to actually enable? So he'd need a 6800 or 6900 card?
 

INSTG8R

Vanguard Beta Tester
Joined
Nov 26, 2004
Messages
8,084 (1.10/day)
Location
Canuck in Norway
System Name Hellbox 5.1(same case new guts)
Processor Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard MSI X570S MAG Torpedo Max
Cooling TT Kandalf L.C.S.(Water/Air)EK Velocity CPU Block/Noctua EK Quantum DDC Pump/Res
Memory 2x16GB Gskill Trident Neo Z 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Powercolor Hellhound 7900XTX
Storage 970 Evo Plus 500GB 2xSamsung 850 Evo 500GB RAID 0 1TB WD Blue Corsair MP600 Core 2TB
Display(s) Alienware QD-OLED 34” 3440x1440 144hz 10Bit VESA HDR 400
Case TT Kandalf L.C.S.
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster ZX/Logitech Z906 5.1
Power Supply Seasonic TX~’850 Platinum
Mouse G502 Hero
Keyboard G19s
VR HMD Oculus Quest 3
Software Win 11 Pro x64
Enabling it in the BIOS doesnt mean a lot, and Asus are pretty well known for BIOS settings that do nothing
even now i have duplicates for a bunch of BIOS settings - and they often dont even match up (i have two "AMD overclocking" sections and they dont sync settings on my B450 and x570 asus boards)


Also doesnt the GPU need to support it in the drivers for it to actually enable? So he'd need a 6800 or 6900 card?
Gigabyte BIOS is the same with “duplicate settings“ the Tweaker section and the AMD Overclocking section have most of the same adjustments available.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,508 (0.78/day)
If that is the case then an old CPU with a current GPU should be tested.
Consider this a 2080Ti on averages only bottlenecks 6-9% at 1080 to 4K at x4 link speed while x8 is 2-3%. Where this could actually really help a fair bit is for integrated graphics at lower resolutions. It would actually also help mGPU since they split PCIE lanes on a x16 slot into two x8/x8 configurations on the motherboard I think in 3-way and QUAD SLI/CF the gains on scaling in those configurations might be decent even if you enabled SAM support on those setups. It's really something that would be great to investigated. Think about that for a moment if mGPU setups and scaling could be tangibly improved through the use of SAM support. Going from a MMIO size of 256MB to 4GB is huge in the context of mGPU you could have in theory the equivalent of 16 card mGPU setup with the same aperture MMIO bandwidth and I/O pretty significant to me. That said weaker GPU's aren't too PCIE bottlenecked even at x4 link speed and x8 link speeds on PCIE 3.0, but still it could amount to a night and day difference in the 0.1% and 1% FPS averages and micro stutter especially in tandem with faster M.2 storage the also helps in that area.

Another aspect with mGPU and DX12 could it be leveraged with this to have each GPU to stripe data to VRAM across them? I feel like mGPU could be better with data striping VRAM and GPU processing potentially think lucid hydra type approach. I really feel they were onto something in concept, but it never quite materialized for consumers. To me I see a huge potential on data stripe parity VRAM across multiple GPU's with DX12 because it can pool the VRAM resources from what I recall. I don't know if it can do data parity VRAM allocation across them though it would be enormous with SAM and the increased aperture BAR size across multiple PCIE slots and GPU's!!? Something else as well the way Radeon Boost functions it plays right into SAM's strengths. This really could impact the landscape of mGPU with VRAM allocation data parity across numerous cards and PCIE buses like RAID-5 for the GPU's BAR size basically and with dynamic variable resolution in the case of Radeon Boost that helps make heavier usage out of SAM.

In theory with the data parity across 4 GPU's with interlacing and MFAA you could render it all at the same speed as a single 1 frame, but actually be rendering 4 separate frames across 4 different GPU's and utilizing the resources striped across each. The interlacing wouldn't be as ideal on resolution clarity, but the temporal rendering from MFAA could possibly lessen the impact of it plus spreading it across 4 frames would reduce some of the shimmer negatives of interlacing at the same refresh rates and MFAA itself reduces shimmer as well so a win/win you end up with 4 GPU's doing the work and at 1/4 the resource overhead of MSAA with progressive scan by using interlacing and MFAA.

Enabling it in the BIOS doesnt mean a lot, and Asus are pretty well known for BIOS settings that do nothing
even now i have duplicates for a bunch of BIOS settings - and they often dont even match up (i have two "AMD overclocking" sections and they dont sync settings on my B450 and x570 asus boards)


Also doesnt the GPU need to support it in the drivers for it to actually enable? So he'd need a 6800 or 6900 card?
If I'm not mistaken you can define that right in the INF file itself or in the windows registry. I think the BIOS firmware support is the real hurdle it's getting MB makers to adopt and enable it to be used in the first place. Until the MB makers enable support for it the GPU makers certainly can't enable support.

AMDs attempts to market this as a ryzen 5000 exclusive feature are dangerous. They are slowly evolving into the money grubbing caricature people love to tout with Nvidia and Intel. I am hoping the latter can become competitive once more to ensure we as consumers are protected
They are, but do you blame them for following in their footsteps with the examples they set and used weren't a positive thing for AMD nor consumers that suffered in the same manner!!? What goes around comes around correct? I'm not saying it's great for consumers, but I at least see AMD's perspective they kind of took advantage of a situation a bit in the same manner the others have in the past. It's no more a problem that AMD did it than if it had been Intel or Nvidia and looking at objectively it's hard to fault them doing in turn to them to their competitors what's been done to them in these situations leveraging a perk they were able to discover to exploit and manipulate so to speak. It's how the corporate world operates unfortunately for us consumers. Bottom line though AMD kick started the push for SAM support to the benefit of every much like they did with Mantle and it's influence on DX12 and other things along the way.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
22,738 (6.05/day)
Location
The Washing Machine
System Name Tiny the White Yeti
Processor 7800X3D
Motherboard MSI MAG Mortar b650m wifi
Cooling CPU: Thermalright Peerless Assassin / Case: Phanteks T30-120 x3
Memory 32GB Corsair Vengeance 30CL6000
Video Card(s) ASRock RX7900XT Phantom Gaming
Storage Lexar NM790 4TB + Samsung 850 EVO 1TB + Samsung 980 1TB + Crucial BX100 250GB
Display(s) Gigabyte G34QWC (3440x1440)
Case Lian Li A3 mATX White
Audio Device(s) Harman Kardon AVR137 + 2.1
Power Supply EVGA Supernova G2 750W
Mouse Steelseries Aerox 5
Keyboard Lenovo Thinkpad Trackpoint II
VR HMD HD 420 - Green Edition ;)
Software W11 IoT Enterprise LTSC
Benchmark Scores Over 9000
AMDs attempts to market this as a ryzen 5000 exclusive feature are dangerous. They are slowly evolving into the money grubbing caricature people love to tout with Nvidia and Intel. I am hoping the latter can become competitive once more to ensure we as consumers are protected

Protected like they are in the current competitive GPU environment, you mean?
 
Joined
Dec 30, 2010
Messages
2,200 (0.43/day)
AMDs attempts to market this as a ryzen 5000 exclusive feature are dangerous. They are slowly evolving into the money grubbing caricature people love to tout with Nvidia and Intel. I am hoping the latter can become competitive once more to ensure we as consumers are protected

Nope.

Your just not getting support for older generation(s). Simple as that. You will get support on the 5x00 generation(s).

If you have this option in the 3x0 series it does'nt mean it offers anything beneficial. It was said that it works best with a 6800 class GPU that contains 16GB of ram. Not anything below.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,508 (0.78/day)
Nope.

Your just not getting support for older generation(s). Simple as that. You will get support on the 5x00 generation(s).

If you have this option in the 3x0 series it does'nt mean it offers anything beneficial. It was said that it works best with a 6800 class GPU that contains 16GB of ram. Not anything below.
It should work most ideally at lower resolutions so high refresh rate gaming and well mobile/integrated and bandwidth PCIE bandwidth link speed restricted mGPU actually.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,508 (0.78/day)
AMD got caught making use of a feature that's technically been around for a long while the industry didn't make use of and overlooked until AMD decided it was useful to them.
 
Joined
Dec 30, 2010
Messages
2,200 (0.43/day)
AMD got caught making use of a feature that's technically been around for a long while the industry didn't make use of and overlooked until AMD decided it was useful to them.

Well it was AMD and HP if i'm correct that "invented" the feature...
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
307 (0.05/day)
Location
WA, USA
System Name Desktop
Processor AMD Ryzen 5950X
Motherboard ASUS Strix B450-I
Cooling be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600
Video Card(s) AMD RX 6800
Storage 480GB MyDigitalSSD NVME
Display(s) AOC CU34G2X
Power Supply 850w
Mouse Razer Basilisk V3
Keyboard Steelseries Apex 5
Have it on my board, but enabling it breaks NVME boot support so I can't go past the BIOS.

Might work if I had a SATA drive. Sadly, my 6800 will be SAM-less for now.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,508 (0.78/day)
Now I wonder if the NVME works fine if you boot off SATA with SAM enabled and if it helps the NVME device or not speed wise. For me the NVME aspect of aperture bar size is the most interesting part about it. I'd really curious about what a M.2 DRAM storage device with SAM could potentially be like if it can make a big difference to NVME performance. I still really am inclined to a think a M.2 DRAM volatile storage could be great though pair it with a CMOS battery and PCIE wired microSD slot to back up to. It's all plenty slim and the battery would be enough to make a emergency write to the microSD card in a power outage I believe. I think you could give a good 4 DRAM chips along with the other things w/o much trouble along with a chip controller. Forget optane I think that's a better option and could somewhat get around 2-channel memory bandwidth on consumer platforms a bit as well using a handful of volatile high speed DRAM based M.2 devices could perk up performance a lot.
 
Joined
Jul 5, 2013
Messages
28,350 (6.76/day)
Hah knew it! Can't trust NVIDIA, can't trust AMD, can't trust Intel.
There's a difference between a company saying they're releasing a new kind of tech for one series of products & a third party enabling it for another set of similar products and a company doing something shady. This doesn't qualify as shady, not even remotely.
 
Last edited:
Top